Headcase explores themes of mental health,
mental illness, and the experience of mental health care services by members of
the LGBTQ community. The editors state, “We initially conceptualized Headcase in 2014 as a curated collection
of personal pieces including essays, poems, illustrations, and photographs by
writers and artists both established and new.” (p. xxviii) They further decided
to include a broad array of patient, provider, social, racial, and ethnic
perspectives to “present a broader, more in depth, and balanced conversation.”
(p. xxviii)

Schroeder
and Theophano divide their anthology into five topical sections: (1)
conversations about health and illness, (2) stories of survival, (3) encounters
of a mad kind, (4) pushing boundaries, and (5) the poetics of mental health and
wellness. Among pieces in the first section, Arlene Istar Lev’s “Queer
Affirmative Therapy” (p. 12) introduces a concept that appears repeatedly
throughout the book. Unlike traditional conversion therapy, which tries to
“cure” gay persons, or even the more neutral DSM V approaches, queer affirmative
therapy not only accepts LGBTQ identities, but considers them normal healthy
variants. Fidelindo Lim’s and Donald Brown’s more personal essay, “Sa Kanyan
Saring Mga Salita” (p. 38), explores the gay experience in Filipino culture.
Among the sad stories in section two, Chana Williams tells the tale of her
mother’s lobotomy as a treatment for depression and lesbian relationships.
Lobotomy also appears in “Fix Me Please, I’m Gay” (section three, p. 169),
where psychologist Guy Albert discusses the era of conversion therapy.
In addition
to essays, the conversation in Headcase
includes poems, artwork (see, for example, Gabrielle Jordan Stein’s “This Work
Is About Digested Socks,” p. 156), a suite of black-and-white images), a series
of glyphs, and even a graphic story about J.R. Sullivan Voss’ attempts to fit into
society as a trans-man, “Sisyphus (Or: Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies.” (p. 88)
In the final section, Guy Glass presents an excerpt of his play, “Doctor
Anonymous,” about the 1972 American Psychiatric Association meeting in which a
closeted gay psychiatrist wearing a mask
asserted the normality of gay identity. (p. 260) To contemporary
viewers, the most shocking revelation in the play is the fact that at that time
homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and conversion therapy was a
standard practice.

Maggie O’Farrell describes the book in a scene involving a casual conversation she has with her mother over tea.

As she lifts the pot to the table, she asks me what I’m working on at the moment, and, as I swallow my water, I tell her I’m trying to write a life, told only through near death experiences. She is silent for a moment, readjusting cosy, milk jug, cup handles. ‘Is it your life?’ she asks. ‘Yes,’ I say, a touch nervously. I have no idea how she’ll feel about this. ‘It’s not…it’s just…snatches of a life. A string of moments. Some chapters will be long. Others might be really short.’ (pp. 142-143)

This conversation is the only place in the book where O’Farrell describes her intentions in writing it. But, what O’Farrell describes to her mother is exactly what the book is, a memoir comprising seventeen “brushes with death,” as she calls these moments. There is no prologue, there are no interludes, there is no coda, just the seventeen stories.

Few people will experience any one of these events, and perhaps only O’Farrell has experienced all of the events she tells us about. She categorizes them based on the anatomy involved in a particular brush with death. For example, some of the chapter names are: “Lungs” (three times), “Neck” (twice), “Abdomen,” “Intestines,” “Cerebellum,” “Circulatory System,” “Whole Body.” The one exception is the chapter, “Daughter.”

Other ways of categorizing the near-death experiences O’Farrell covers could be based on whether they threatened O’Farrell herself or any of her children, whether they were the result of bad luck (e.g., illness) or bad judgment (e.g., near drowning), or whether the threat originated outside the body (e.g., accident) or within the body (e.g., illness, medical procedures). The brushes with death from outside the body involved violence (twice), decapitation (twice), drowning (three times), a plunging commercial airliner, and a knife throwing exhibition. From within her body, close calls involved encephalitis as a child, amoebic dysentery while traveling in a developing country, a Cesarean section gone awry, and a few missed miscarriages (i.e., when fetus dies but no signs or symptoms manifest and surgical procedures become necessary). A daughter was born with severe allergic conditions that caused the child misery pretty much all the time interspersed with episodes of life-threatening reactions. O’Farrell’s son was almost lost in one of her near drownings.

O’Farrell leaves it to the epigraph she placed at the beginning of the book to stitch together how these stories collectively reveal the possibility of the human spirit to get us through the most serious and persistent challenges to our being. For this epigraph, she takes a line from Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar:

I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.

Miriam Himmelfarb is the middle of three daughters of holocaust survivors Rachael and Daniel, who are secular Jews born in Europe. Safe in the house on Lippincott in an immigrant neighborhood of Toronto, Sondra, Miriam and Esther grow up hearing their parents’ nightmare screams every night. They bask in genuine affection and learn to respect the horrific history of their elders whose needs come to dominate their own. Their father angers at the slightest provocation, and every tiny domestic issue is a reminder of Auschwitz. These conditions become their own form of trauma. Daniel allows his child-abusing younger brother into the home where he secretly molests Sondra. The girl flees to live on the street in prostitution and addiction. Esther turns to religion and marries within the faith, finding comfort in traditions. Following in the footsteps of her professor mother, Miriam becomes a philosopher. She briefly moves out during her studies to live in the avant-gardeRochdale College, but she is unable to build a life outside the parental home and returns, denying herself independence and love. The loss of her mother by carefully planned suicide is terrifying.

This is a gripping, informative, and well-researched book
about human blood. An accomplished journalist, Rose George, covers a variety of
topics, largely in the U.S., Britain, and Canada but also in Nepal, India, and
South Africa. She describes many current
issues, provides historical background, and speculates on future technologies,
such as replacement of blood by other fluids. There are nine sections:

“My Pint” While
the book’s title refers to the author's volume of blood, this chapter’s title refers
to a single pint she is donating. We read about blood supply (donated
and stored blood) in the U.S. and—by contrast—in India.

“The Most Singular and Valuable Reptile” refers to the
leech. This arresting chapter describes both historical and modern uses of
leeches to gather blood from humans. She visits a company called Biopharm in Wales where leeches are raised and prepared for shipment to medical clinics and
hospitals.

“Janet and Percy” is a historical chapter focusing on Dame Janet Maria Vaughan, a central figure in creating the Blood
Transfusion Service in England during WWII and Percy Oliver, who guided its
predecessor, the London Blood Transfusion Service.

“Blood Borne.”
This chapter describes Khayelitsha, South Africa, “the ugly backside of
Cape Town” (p. 100): a place of poverty, crime, rape, sexual predation, and
HIV. While rich nations provide assessment and treatment for people with HIV,
poor nations have many citizens infected with the virus and, over time, rising
rates of infection.

“The Yellow Stuff” describes the plasma portion of
blood; it can be frozen (as FFP) and used as a filler for bleeding or trauma
patients. Unlike blood—which can only be
given without payment—plasma can be collected from paid donors. It is a largely
traded commodity, part of a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Plasma
carries Factor VIII, a crucial protein for clotting blood; hemophiliacs lack
this and are at risk for death by bleeding externally or internally. Some
plasma has been tainted, for example by HIV.

“Rotting Pickles.”
In Western Nepal (and other places), menstruation is taboo. George writes, “We are in a
minority among species, and among mammals, to bleed every month.” She reviews
historical views of women’s periods, mostly negative. Worldwide, there are many
taboos, but also some educational efforts for public health that are helpful in
impoverished areas.

“Nasty Cloths.” This tells the unusual story of an Indian
man named Muruga, “a poorly educated workshop helper” who became a leader in
creating sanitary protection for menstruating women. Worldwide, the feminine
hygiene industry is some $23 billion. George also reviews related history, including
Toxic Shock Syndrome from tampons.

“Code Red.” Bleeding is often a fatal factor in
trauma, even with the best efforts to transfuse blood into the patient, unit
after unit. George observes open chest techniques at a resuscitation. She
reviews breakthroughs in blood typing, component therapy, and “buddy
transfusions.”

“Blood like Guinness: The Future.” George starts with
images from the past: vampires, human drinkers of blood, past and, even,
present. She interviews a purveyor of the concept that “young blood” is
healthier than older blood. Can there
be, discovered or created, blood substitutes that also save lives?

In 2006, Emergency medicine trainee, Damon, and his wife, Trisha, have two boys, Thai (age 4) and Callum (age 2.5). All is well in their lives until Callum begins vomiting for no apparent reason. He is found to have medulloblastoma, an aggressive brain tumour, for which the only possible hope for a cure comes from surgery and six cycles of ever more arduous chemotherapy with stem cell recovery at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The little family moves to Toronto and commits to supporting Callum as best they can, ensuring that he is never alone even during his long weeks of reverse isolation. They also try to keep Thai nearby, involved and aware, with the help of a local school and grandparents. But Callum dies during the last cycle of treatment. Saddened, exhausted, and bereaved, Damon and Trisha go back to their home town and try to (re)construct their lives, slowly returning to studies and work. They find meaning in creating tangible and intangible memorials to their lost son, and they find purpose in the more difficult task of moving forward, never losing the pain of grief. They adopt a little girl. Damon knows that Callum is always with him and the experience of his illness and death has dramatically infused his work as a physician.

In this volume
by the esteemed nurse-poet/writer, Cortney Davis, are 43 previously
published poems (some revised for this collection), assembled in 3
sections-- the middle section featuring her long poem, "Becoming the
Patient," that recounts through 10 shorter poems her time "in the
hospital."

The poems in the surrounding sections describe in beautiful and
intimate detail her patients' lives and the call to and practice of nursing.
Featured throughout are battles won and lost-- with disease, with the medical
staff, and as the title-- taking
care of time--
suggests, the finitude we all face. No matter the difficulties of hospital
life-- whether as practitioner or patient-- its familiarity provides
grounding and comfort in these poems as, for example, heard through
the speaker of "First Night at the Cheap Hotel" who tells us:

"Being here is like being sick in a hospital wardwithout the lovely,
muffling glove of illness.In hospital, I would be drowsy, drugged into a
calmthat accepts the metal door's clang,the heavy footfall right outside my
door.All these, proof of life,and there would be a nurse too, holding my
wrist,counting and nodding, only a silhouette in the dark" (p.67)

And if
sometimes the experiences and images become too hard to bear, the skillful
nurse-poet can, as Cortney Davis does in "On-Call: Splenectomy,"
"tame them on page” (p.52).

When poet and writer Amy Nawrocki was nineteen years old, a
college student returning home after her freshmen year, she suffered a sudden
and mysterious illness. She was
transformed, in an eye-blink, from an active young woman to a bed bound and comatose
patient. "There is nothing to embellish--I
got sick, I fell into a deep sleep, I woke up.
No fairy tale" (page 3).
Months of her life went missing: this brief and lovely memoir is her
attempt to reconstruct those hours and those experiences. She begins with reflections on journal
entries written before her illness began, giving the reader (and herself) a
persona, a personality, a living breathing young woman who already writes, who
lives in her head, and who always felt "totally comfortable" in her
body (page 3).
Then we lose her, as she lost herself. She re-visions the story of her months of
suffering and recovering from encephalitic coma through the various medical
records and family memories she gathers in order to reconstruct the missing
pieces of her life. "The coma girl has detached herself from me. I have to
dream her up or rely on what others saw, eye witnesses who had to detach
themselves in a different way" (page 21).
Coming back into life after a serious illness is a strange
and often prolonged journey. Nawrocki writes,
"Waking up took as long as sleeping" (page 33). And in this waking up time, she begins to see
who she was (or how she looked to others) during those blank months. "The
images still frighten me. My face was a mess; hair cropped short, puffed up
without styling, ragged, like I just woke up. My eyes seemed empty but weirdly
wild" (page 35).
During her recovery, the author begins journaling again.
"In my college notes, I focused on the art of reflection; after the
illness, I wanted mainly to observe" (page 42). And in recovery, she begins to build memories
once again. She lists her recollections during weeks in rehab, and she
remembers "the final trip home, a cake decorated with blue and yellow
icing waiting for me" (page 45).

"joy: 100 poems," edited by poet and editor
Christian Wiman, is a collection of 100 poems that examine, in various ways,
the state of consciousness we call "joy."
The poets represented here are for the most part well known,
as are many of their poems. But,
happily, there are poems here that seem new, especially when viewed through the
lens of "joy."

The book begins with an excellent twenty-eight page
introduction by Wiman in which he discusses the various shades of joy we might
encounter in our lives, examines closely some of the poems represented, and
briefly comments on his selection process.

Alpha is part
graphic novel, part heartbreaking memoir of cabinetmaker Alpha Coulibaly. It
chronicles the story of a man on a journey to find his family and a better
life, but his story could easily apply to the tens of thousands others who are
seeking refuge. This is the painful tale of the refugee journey.

Alpha is from Cote
d’Ivoire, Africa. The book is written in first person, in a manner as if the
reader and Alpha are sitting together at a coffeeshop, as a family member or
dear friend would recant their trials and tribulations to a trusted confidant.
The text is blunt, matter of fact, but also painfully deep and poetic.

We learn
about Alpha’s desire to reconnect with his family, whom he believes made it to
Paris and to his sister-in-laws salon. He explains the futile process of
attempting to go through the government sanctioned means of gaining access to
other countries, which proves to be impossible. The only remaining option is to
attempt to steal away by paying smugglers to help him cross border after
border. This means long trips in overcrowded vans, treks by foot, and even
precarious watercrafts. The journey is harrowing, and soul crushing. Death is
looming around every bend, whether by illness, dehydration during these long,
crowded desert drives, or by the hand of crooked armed border guards. Days turn
to weeks, weeks to months, and eventually years. Many perish in their journey,
but Alpha remains steadfast in his commitment to find his child and wife
despite the unfavorable odds. He endures death of fellow refugees, friends, and
children. He is forced to live in slums in each new country he enters and work
laborious odd jobs to pay off smuggler after shady smuggler at each never
ending leg of his journey. This is a tale of the many who are treated like
unwanted pieces of trash, balled up and thrown into slums, labeled as “illegal
immigrants,” and all so they can have the chance of a better life for them, and
for their families.

Most students of biology are well aware of our humble
beginnings as puny, single-celled lifeforms. The mechanism of our remarkable
transformation was famously described by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking
text On the Origin of Species,
published in 1859. In many respects, Darwin’s magnum opus was just the opening
chapter of a much broader discussion of how we humans have taken our current
form. Darwin elucidated only a general process of adaptation and evolution in
the face of environmental pressures. He left his successors with the more
onerous task of applying this rule to the tortuous history of human evolution.Rising to the occasion nearly a full century later was Homer
Smith, a prominent kidney physiologist who spent much of his life and career as
the Director of Physiological Laboratories at the NYU School of Medicine. Dr.
Smith shares his account of our evolutionary history in his 1953 book From Fish to Philosopher. In the book,
he posits that organisms must have a system for maintaining a distinct
“internal environment” in order to have any sense of freedom from the
perennially dynamic external environment. He guides the reader through the various
biological filtration devices that have come and gone over the eras,
culminating with the fist-sized organs dangling next to our spines.

The book is often billed as a detailed treatise on how
modern-day mammalian kidneys have arisen from their more primordial forms – a
fair assessment, especially given the author’s background. But this book offers
readers something much more ambitious in scope than a rehashing of his work in
renal physiology. For example, the first chapter of the book, “Earth”,
highlights geological milestones that molded the early environment of the first
known lifeforms. In Dr. Smith’s words,

“the history of living organisms
has been shaped at every turn by earth’s vicissitudes, because every geologic
upheaval, by causing profound changes in the distribution of land and sea, has
had profound effects on the climates of both, and hence of the patterns of life
in both” (pp. 9).

By the final chapter, “Consciousness”, he has begun to
ponder questions of metacognition and learning. He marvels at how our complex
nervous system has allowed classical pianists to balance the rigidity required
for technical prowess, and the fluidity required for creativity. This is not a
textbook about our kidneys. From Fish to
Philosopher is a story of mankind’s genesis, told through the existential
musings of a physiologist who left no stone unturned.